ZERO POSITIVE
Maybe Himmer’s reaction is a denial mechanism; maybe it’s a distracted mistake. He certainly has enough on his mind. His mother has just died after a long illness and a horror-show marriage; his father, the poet Jacob Blank, has retreated silently into a fantasized past in which he is an adulterous newlywed–free of such baggage as a gay son and a marriage gone wrong. Himmer’s two closest companions, Samantha and a gay man named Prentice, are beset by romantic turmoil–Samantha’s lover has turned out to be married (just like all the others before him), Prentice’s is an abusive con man. Now come the test results–“a death sentence” in 1987, when the play takes place (and was written). The medical diagnosis only confirms in physical fact Himmer’s sense that any action is futile to effect change in a world that’s breaking down. When life is, well, zero positive, all you can do is laugh. And grieve. At the same time.
